Discussion

Report on A&amp;W Seafood &amp; BBQ Restaurant, Northridge

Husband and I were planning on going to NBC Seafood in Monterey Park this morning for dim sum but decided to try A&W Seafood in Northridge as it was closer and we were hungry. Wouldn't have even known about it except for Chowhound posting. We were glad we did! Chef was from Hong Kong and food seemed just as authentic as that at NBC Seafood. We were not disappointed. For the most part, it was a shrimp fest--ground shrimp deep fried around a sugar cane stick with a mayo dipping sauce, shrimp sui mai, shrimp noodle crepes, and fried ground shrimp and eggplant. Nonetheless, we managed to order a few non-shrimp items like the meatballs, bbq pork fried rice, bbq pork bao as well as the almond jello with fruit. We didn't eat all of it so we had ample leftovers. And how much for all this? $26 + tax/tip. True! No joke. We arrived just after 10 am and had no problem with seating as there were two or three empty tables. By the time we left, people were waiting to be seated. Located on Reseda Blvd. at Prairie.

Love this place. Treat yourself one day to their fresh lobster in the house sauce. It's out of this world! (You'll need some friends, it's a huge dish, depending on the size of the lobster. I think average 4 pounds.) I drag friends into the valley just to eat this.

A&W in Northridge has what I consider the best dim sum in Los Angeles. It even out-classes places in San Francisco.

For me it is the best of dim sum experience to be had in Los Angeles. They have a large dining room that is moderately crowded enough to electrify the air but not so crowded as to make you wait for any more than 10 minutes. There is a wide variety of baked and steamed dumplings, delicious red bean-filled desserts, and even chicken feet.

The polished steel push carts that parade through the dining room are constantly refilled by runners from the kitchen so their parcels are always hot. The staff is appropriately terse and english-challenged which one expects at the better dim sum establishments. Yet I was able to elicit a brief smile when complementing one of the managers on their operation.

The crowd was mostly Asian, with entire families from the youngest newborn to the octogenarian grandma, but about a quarter of the crowd are white or Hispanic. So if you are non-Chinese, you don't feel like an outsider like I have felt at some dim sum joints in San Francisco.

A&W is a delicious jewel hidden in the Valley which I would higly recommend to all.